Various applications exist wherein it is necessary to employ a device to separate particulate solids. For example, in the processing of vegetable granular materials having meat portions and hull portions to be separated therefrom, particles of each portion are intermixed as a result of processing. It is desirable and economically efficient to separate the meat portions from the hull portions for further disposition. The meat portions tend to be relatively large compared to the hull portions.
Other applications, of course, exist for separating intermixed granular materials. U.S. Pat. No. 2,795,329 (Shaub) illustrates a device for the separation of fine-grained portions from intermixed granular material. The device illustrated in that document allows introduction of a bulk product into a chamber by gravity flow through a center-line pipe. A blast pipe, having annular slots, provides a counter-current air stream which interacts with downwardly-moving granular flow.
Such a device serves to somewhat accomplish the goals of a particulate material separator and overcomes some of the shortcomings of the prior art. It is important, however, that both by-products of the separation action be able to be recovered and removed from the gas or other fluid being employed in the separation process. The Shaub '329 patent does not permit recovery and retrieval of all by-products.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,766,880 (Shaub et al.) is similar in its teachings to the Shaub patent previously discussed. Materials are introduced, by gravity flow, through a center-line pipe. Airflow through a series of louvered slots is introduced in a counter-current direction to the downwardly passing granular material. As in the case of the Shaub '880 patent, however, a basic deficiency continues to be present. Not all by-products of the process performed are able to be recovered and retrieved. Certainly, the gas employed in separation is not purified so that it can be recycled and used again.
It is to the desirable dictates of a separator outlined above and the shortcomings of the prior art that the present invention is directed. It is an improved separator which not only accomplishes efficient separation, but it is also one which provides for simultaneous removal of particulate materials from the gas being employed in operation of the separator.